Abstract
Introduction: The term 'diabetes mellitus' refers to a wide range of metabolic conditions where there is an abnormal increase of glucose levels in the blood that results from dysfunctional insulin secretion and/or activity. Recent reports estimate that within the next twenty years, the US will have more than forty-four million patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus type 2, which is almost double the current number or diabetic patients. Generally, any individual should be suspected to have diabetes mellitus type 2 if they have an indicative history. These patients most immediately undergo the necessary work up to confirm or exclude the disease. Aim of work: In this review, we will discuss the most recent evidence regarding diabetes mellitus screening, diagnosis in family medicine settings. Methodology: We did a systematic search for diabetes mellitus screening and diagnosis in the emergency department using PubMed search engine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and Google Scholar search engine (https://scholar.google.com). All relevant studies were retrieved and discussed. We only included full articles
Conclusions: Diabetes mellitus covers a wide range of metabolic conditions where abnormal glucose metabolism is present. It is considered to be the most common condition diagnosed by primary practitioners. Poor control on diabetes mellitus, regardless of the subtype, will lead to the development of severe complications in different body organs like loss of sight, amputation of extremities, chronic kidney disease and renal failure, vasculopathies, and cardiovascular diseases. In this review we discussed proper screening methods for each subgroup. Once an abnormal finding is detected during screening methods, further evaluation is required to confirm or exclude the presence of diabetes. Studies have found that screening for diabetes was associated with improved overall 30-year survival in most subgroups.